Mother-of-Thousands Part II, the Mistake.

Whoops. It had no plantlets when it was given to me. It seemed so harmless, but it would appear that my kalanchoe tubiflora is just as feculent as it's more common, mother-of-thousands cousin. Hopefully this version, called a chandelier plant, will have less plantlets simply because they grow on the tips of the "leaves" instead of along the sides of the entire.

I didn't even bother looking it up before planting it among the other succulents in the large front garden. It seems a shame to move it, and now I'm committed to having one of these propagating things in the ground. Maybe it'll be okay. Perhaps it's better to have to deal with offshoots than regular grassy weeds.

There are still alternatives if you want a mother-of-thousands but don't want to deal with plantlets growing around it. The pink butterfly kalanchoe produces beautiful pink plantlets that aren't actually plantlets. They don't grow on their own, and the plant itself can only be reproduced through cuttings. It's one of my favorites, and if you can find it, I highly recommend adding it to your succulent garden for its pop of pink color. After searching for one for a few years I was pleasantly surprised to find them in stock at my local Home Depot a couple of seasons ago, so it IS possible to get hold of.

Floribunda in Abundance

The blooms glow.

  There are a few succulent plants I've inadvertently fallen in love with as I've watched them thrive in my first household garden. Surprisingly I've grown attached to a plant that doesn't seem to be quite as well-known as many other fast-growing succulents.

The glowing fuschia spheres behind the blooming aeonium are calandrinia floribunda.

  A few pieces of calandrinia floribunda my brother scrounged while walking his dog were stuck in the dirt at my house. One year later...

The plant grows in chunky clusters.

As the stem extends, old leaves create a bit of extra protection.

   Floribunda gives you a lot of plant with a very little flower, but that flower packs a punch. Not quite ground cover, the plant grows stems which remain bare. This is the only detraction from the plant's beauty, but it can be a big one. The stems look sturdy, but they break easily, and the plant itself is low-growing, except for the flowers which are three feet above the plant body.
 The plant grows so quickly its name is easy to understand, and is great for filling in space, though again, the stems can be a drawback.

The tip of a former bare stick.

  The bare stems don't always display so clearly, as new growth hides the unsightly bits. Since I've been harvesting pieces of my two plants to grow in other parts of the garden. This leaves the stems more exposed than they usually would be.

  I broke off a large piece of plant and pulled off individual rosettes with flowers to plant in other parts of the yard. I was left with a bare clump of stick, which I stuck in the ground near the hose-bib. It sprouted quite quickly, and I'm sure that in a year I will have an entire mature plant covering up that unsightly dirt!

Bees are constant visitors.

The left-over clump of stems, already sprouting leaves at every stem and crotch!

I do not possess a single succulent which grows as quickly and easily as floribunda does. It's for this reason I've spread it around, as there is plenty of space to fill and I can't buy all of the larger plants and trees I want just yet.